


Hard to be Soft, Tough to be Tender

by gilligankane



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-06
Updated: 2010-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-17 08:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not until Rachel Berry that Santana realizes she’s become nothing but goo on the inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard to be Soft, Tough to be Tender

The people who think that Santana has control of this thing with Brittany are stupid. They’re stupid and blind because they only see Santana showing Brittany her right from her left or Santana humoring Brittany about the duck being in the hat; really, it’s Brittany calming Santana down with a pale hand on a her thigh or Brittany saying something idle and crazy to get Santana to smile.

It’s Brittany pulling the strings. It’s Santana who’s helpless to do anything but keep her head above water.

At first, Santana is one of those people: she thinks  _she’s_  in charge.

She thinks  _she’s_  in charge, until she realizes that she isn’t, and when she does, she also realizes, much to her horror, that she’s gone soft in the process.

\---

Quinn is the one who gets Santana thinking.

“Wanna come to the mall this weekend?” Quinn frowns, one hand lingering on her stomach. “I have to find some decent-looking maternity clothes.”

 _‘Bout time, Kankles_  is on the tip of her tongue, followed closely by  _couldn’t get Manhands to go with you?_  and a sneer, but what really comes out is “I’m not sure I can” in a genuinely disappointed tone.

Quinn doesn’t look like she knows what to say; Santana has already schooled her features, keeping them tight. “I’m sorry?”

Santana shrugs, trying to act casual. “I haven’t talked to Britt about what we’re doing this weekend yet.”

Quinn nods slowly and her mouth quirks up in something would Santana would call a smirk, if she had to. “Sure.”

“It’s just that she said something about maybe hanging out this weekend,” she mumbles defensively.

Quinn is definitely smirking now. “Whatever you say, S.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Don’t give me that look.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Santana huffs and narrows her eyes. “ _That_. That look, right there,” she says, almost hissing.

Quinn lifts on eyebrow. “Look,” she repeats slowly.

“You’re looking at me like you look at Berry whenever she says something that actually makes sense.”

A moment passes in a stare down and then Quinn shrugs her shoulders and gives a small laugh, reaching into her locker, and then slamming the metal door shut. “It’s just,” she says, biting her lip slightly. “Cute,” she finally says, laughing again. “It’s just cute.”

“What’s cute?” Santana growls, her fingernails leaning half-moon shapes in her palm as Quinn takes a couple of steps towards the main entrance.

“You, thinking of other people that way. It’s almost like the Grinch is growing a heart.” Quinn turns back and frowns a little. “Or,” she continues, “it’s like the Grinch is finding out she actually has a heart.”

Brittany swings around the corner, threading her arm through Santana’s and pulling them out into the parking lot before Santana even has a chance to process anything Quinn says.

Later, when she’s lying in bed, she finally runs through it in her head, and she tells herself that it doesn’t make sense; the pregnancy must be affecting her head, as well as her Rachel Berry-directed hormones.

\---

Puck, the biggest social outcast since – well, since no one, because even if people couldn’t stand Jacob Ben Israel, they talked to him and used him. Puck just ambles through the halls, head down, not making eye contact with anyone.

“He looks so sad,” Brittany whispers in her ear, her breath hot against the side of Santana’s neck.

Santana pulls her head back and turns it towards Brittany. “So what?”

Brittany’s face turns down in exactly the way Santana hates. “He doesn’t have any friends. You should go talk to him.”

“No.”

Her voice is firm and her mouth is set in a clear “there’s-no-way-in-hell-I’m-doing-that” line, but Brittany tips her head down towards her feet, peers back up at Santana through her eyelashes, biting her lip and tugging on the bottom of Santana’s uniform.

“For me?”

Fewer words have broken her resolve before.

She sighs heavily and rolls her eyes – if she’s going to give in that easy, she’s at least going to act like she doesn’t want to – and Brittany beams, lifting her head back up. Her fingers, hooked on Santana’s top, brush against Santana’s hipbone and Santana bites back the whimper she feels building behind her teeth and breaks their connection instead because the hallway is crowded and someone is  _always_  paying attention to the Cheerios.

She takes a deep, even breath and crosses the hallway, falling in stride with Puck.  _We’re both going to the same class_ , she rationalizes.  _There’s no harm in walking with him. Brittany asked me to._

“What are you doing, Lopez?” he snarls, as if he has the wiggle room to be rude to the only person who’s approached him over two weeks.

“Walking to class,” she says, her voice just as low.

He frowns and stops in the middle of the hall. A freshman walking behind them too close almost steps on the back of her shoe, but he scampers off when she glares at him over her shoulder. “Why the hell are you walking with me?” he snaps.

“What’s it to you?”

Puck shrugs. “I just,” he trails off. “I’m not the most popular guy right now.”

She rolls her eyes and looks back over her shoulder at Brittany talking animatedly with Quinn. “Yeah, well, good thing I’ve got enough popularity for the both of us,” she murmurs.

\---

“So, want to talk about the  _real_  elephant in the room?”

Santana turns with one eyebrow lifted and looks at Kurt as if she can’t believe he’s standing there, breathing.

“It’s a girl-shaped elephant, by the way,” he continues.

“Hummel, what do you want?”

The hallways are emptying; she only came back after Cheerios practice because she left her jacket in her locker – Sue Sylvester doesn’t believe in being cold – and she doesn’t have time for this.

“You’re in love with Brittany.”

She should punch him, but in the back of her head, Brittany’s voice is telling her that  _“hitting people is never right. Unless they deserve it, and they usually don’t.”_  Instead, she growls, low in the back of her throat, and stands straight, towering over him. “You’re in love with Finn.”

Kurt looks amused. “Old news. So is you being in love with Brittany, for that matter, but seeing as you haven’t addressed it or stopped Mike Chang from hanging off her every time you turn your back, maybe you should make a general announcement.”

She takes a step forward. “Mike Chang  _what_?”

“Down, Lopez,” he hums, placing his hands on her shoulders, pushing her back with surprising force. “She’s doesn’t pay him the slightest attention,” he says, murmuring “ _God only knows why not_ ” under his breath.

He takes a deep breath and starts ranting about posters and staring some club and Santana tunes him out, leaning back against her locker, silently berating herself. Weeks ago, if Kurt Hummel had tried talking to her, let alone lecture her on  _“the ways to be a proper girlfriend”_ , she would have already texted some freshmen Cheerios and instructed them to douse him in Slushies tomorrow morning.

She has to be having an off day.  _I **have**  been feeling weird all day_, she muses, except that she knows she’s been feeling weird because the taco sauce her dad put in her dinner last night was probably way past its shelf-life.

There’s no reason why she should be letting Kurt rant and rave and basically tell her she’s a terrible human being if she can’t see the way that Brittany looks at her except there  _is_  a reason and she’s tall and blond and has the prettiest smile and the purest heart and if Santana wants to be honest with herself, Brittany has always managed to get her to do things she never would have allowed herself to do; being torn by Kurt being one of those things, join Glee was another.

Two long, pale arms wind themselves around her waist and Brittany’s front presses against her back, a sharp chin digging into her shoulder bone.

“I got tired of waiting for you,” Brittany says, smiling at Kurt.

“That’s my fault,” Kurt says, reverting back to little Kurt Hummel with flushed cheeks and awestruck eyes. She doesn’t blame him; Brittany is pretty goddamn awe-inspiring.

Brittany straightens up and her chin lifts off Santana’s shoulder, her arms sliding up around Santana’s ribcage. “It’s okay. We’re going to get ice cream, even though Coach says we shouldn’t. We’re total rule-breakers like that,” she whispers, as if Coach is lurking in the halls; which wouldn’t surprise Santana at all.

She’s about to say that Kurt has plans and he can’t come, but he’s grinning and Brittany is tugging on the back of her uniform skirt and she’s being dragged through the halls of McKinley while Brittany and Kurt ramble on about choreographing another dance number.

Santana thinks that maybe her “off” day has more to do with something other than the bad taco sauce.

\---

It’s not until Rachel Berry that Santana realizes she’s become nothing but  _goo_  on the inside.

If she was anything else but mushy, if she was still all ice and badass, she definitely wouldn’t be standing in the middle of Ms. Pillsbury’s office, in a “contamination circle”, watching neon green ice crystals drop off her shoulder and hit the ground with a soft  _splat_. Ms. Pillsbury gives a strangled shriek – _again_ , Santana notes, her eardrums burning – and takes another step back.

“Where,” she growls, glaring at Ms. Pillsbury, “the hell is Quinn?”

“Santana, language.”

Santana’s answer is cut off by the glass door swinging open and Quinn hurtling through the door, stopping short, clapping her hand down over her mouth. Puck is right behind her and has to veer off to the desk to avoid colliding with Quinn, but Santana wishes he had when Puck starts laughing loudly, pointing like Santana is some sort of animal at the zoo.

“Green is  _definitely_  not your color,” he wheezes.

Santana turns towards the desk slowly, eyes narrowed and mouth open, but before she can rip into Puck, Rachel whimpers again from one of the chairs in front of the desk and everyone’s attention is now on her.

Rachel looks even worse than she does and she understands that, by principle, she should get more sympathy, but when Quinn brushes by her and starts smoothing down Rachel’s hair, Santana sees red through the lime Slushie dripping off her hair into her eyes.

“You guys!” she explodes. Quinn flinches, Puck’s eyes widen, Ms. Pillsbury lets out another small shriek, but Rachel doesn’t even make eye contact with her; just keeps staring at her hands, flexing them over and over, her shoulders shaking.

It’s not until Rachel Berry that Santana realizes she’s become nothing but goo on the inside, because Rachel won’t look up at her and Santana is sure there’s a bruise forming on her cheek where Karofsky thought he’d get a little creative after wasting the Slushie intended for Rachel on Santana and Santana just wants Rachel to look at her, so she knows that the smaller brunette is okay. She looks down at her own hand, watching the dried blood crack when she flexes her hand and looks back, catching Rachel watching the motion.

She sighs inside and moves out of the circle Ms. Pillsbury drew on the floor, shouldering past Puck and ignoring Ms. Pillsbury’s inarticulate stammering, and sits in the chair next to Rachel, reaching one hand out, but unsure what she should do with it.

It ends up hanging off the arm of the chair, almost touching Rachel’s sweater vest, but not quite.

“Listen,” she says softly, “Karofsky is an asshole. He’ll never be anything, or anyone, and he’ll die a lonely death.” She says that like she’s almost sure of it; like she’ll be the one making sure it happens that way. “He’s a jerk and I took care of it, okay?”

If Rachel starts crying, Santana is almost positive she’ll have no idea what to do. Crying isn’t her thing.

Rachel sighs – shaky, but it’s a sigh and  _not_  tears. “I know,” she whispers, touching Santana’s hand lightly. “I know.”

The spell is broken and Santana is covered in Slushie in a glass office and the bell is going to ring soon.

She  _cannot_  be seen like this.

Rachel’s hand lifts off hers and she spins, catching Puck by the collar. “C’mon,” she hisses, pulling him towards the door, content that Quinn has Rachel and things are under control. “I need to change.”

Puck looks confused. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to-”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she says, laughing humorlessly. “I need you to drive me home so I can get my spare uniform, and then drive me back here. I can’t miss Spanish or practice.”

“You can’t miss Brittany,” Puck murmurs, almost too low for her to hear.

She hears it though and she waits until they’re in the parking lot, getting into his truck before she says anything. “You don’t tell anyone about this, understand me? Including her.”

He takes a right out of the parking lot and frowns. “Everyone is going to know before the end of the day.”

“No, they’re not,” she says calmly. “Karofsky thought that hitting someone with a Slushie in an empty hallway was cool, or something.”

“And since you beat the crap out of him,” Puck continues, “there’s no way he’s going to talk about it.” He whistles appreciatively. “Pretty smart, Lopez.”

She makes a noise in the back of her throat. “Of course it was.”

He’s silent for a few minutes until they pull up to her house. She reaches for the door handle and only stops when he grabs her by the arm, his hand sliding against the Slushie. “What you did back there-”

“Will never be talked about, ever,” she cuts in.

“Was pretty awesome,” Puck finishes, speaking over her. “It was really decent of you, to stick up for Rachel that way.”

She should scoff and say something about wanting to punch Karofsky for a while, or tell him that it was a reflex and it’ll never happen again, but her body betrays her: she shrugs her shoulders, tips her head down and says “It’s not that big of a deal, really.”

“It is,” he says softly, but she’s already out of the car, slamming the door, and sneaking into her house.

\---

She can feel Brittany smile against her stomach, and she knows where this is going – where Brittany is going – but the day was long and she really just wants to sleep. Her hands slide out of Brittany’s hair and hook under Brittany’s arms, tugging until the blond gets the hint and slides back up, propping her head up on her hand, a half-smile gracing her mouth.

“What’s wrong?”

Santana shakes her head. “Nothing. I just feel like  _actually_  sleeping,” she says, adding  _with you_  in her head.

Brittany almost looks like she doesn’t get it, but the confusion is only visible for a moment and then Brittany is pressing a chaste kiss to her neck and sliding an arm around Santana’s stomach.

She can feel words against her skin, but she’s not sure what they are so she pulls back and asks Brittany to say that again.

“I said,” Brittany repeats, her words hardly audibly, “that this is nice.”

“Of course it is,” she says, scoffing. “Why wouldn’t it be nice?”

Brittany shrugs, one of her shoulders catching Santana’s jaw. “We don’t usually just cuddle, is all I mean. We do cuddle, just usually  _after_  we have sex.”

She almost feels offended, but Brittany is right.

Brittany is right and Santana has the sudden urge to prove her wrong this time and the next time and the time after that.

“So let’s try something new,” she breathes out, pulling Brittany back down against her side. She twitches a little. “Your feet are cold.”

Brittany smiles against her neck. “I’m not putting socks on,” she says lightly, pushing her body further into Santana’s. “Totally not gonna happen.”

Santana knows this; Brittany  _never_  wears socks –  _“because I’m not wearing socks while I go down on you, S, and I’m not getting out of bed to put them on afterwards”_  – and Santana  _always_  says something about it.

She knows this, but she’s made sacrifices for Brittany before – ones that Brittany knows about and other that Santana hopes Brittany will never find out – and cold feet is nothing new so she’ll let it go this time and sleep.

Maybe she can get Brittany to wear socks next time.


End file.
